Abstract:

This investigation examines the audience experience with television news in South Africa and presents a process model of uses and gratifications based upon an expectancy-value approach. According to this approach expectations about finding certain television news-items and evaluations of these news-items are important antecedents of motives to seek associated gratifications. The prime objective of the study was accomplished when three reliable scales for the measurement of values attached to television news-items; expectations about finding such news-items in television news; and gratification of these expectations, were developed. The Pearson product-moment correlation method which was used to explore the relationships between the three scales, indicated a significant correlation between all the scales, although the correlation between values and expectations was much stronger than the correlation between values and gratifications. While the correlation between expectations and gratifications was still significant, it was also much lower than the correlation between values and expectations. This latter finding of a not nearly perfect correlation between expectations and gratifications provides evidence against the teleological criticism that since a gratification is expected and sought, it must necessarily be obtained. Instead, it is found that television news programmes in South Africa, while effective, are imperfect providers of news-related gratifications sought (expectations) by audience members. Finally, to cast additional light on the relative lower correlation between expectations and gratifications, the degree of dependence on television news as primary news source was taken into account.